heaven is a place in nottingham

Saturday evening in Nottingham and we had spent most of the day looking at the restaurants available, seemed that Nottingham wasn’t short of a restaurant or two. We chose to try French Living, a café and shop by day and basement restaurant by night.

Entry to the restaurant is via a steep spiral staircase, when we entered the cellar room we were greeted by a friendly 'bon soir' and we asked if they had a table for two available, after checking whether we had booked or not (we hadn’t) the waiter offered us a choice of various tables for two, we chose one near the entrance so we could food and people watch all at the same time; after we were seated the restaurant quickly filled up, i recommend booking or getting there early to ensure a table.

The first bottle of wine we ordered was a very smooth drinking sauvignon blanc, the restaurant offered a selection of set menu offers or a total al a carte option, all of the options sounded fantastic but it didn’t take us to long to decide. Hubby went for foie gras served in two ways (as a parfait and pan seared) and for his main course rare fillet steak, I chose tuna fillet seared on one side served with a fantastic dressing and for main I chose duck breast served with a preserved raspberry sauce.

I have to admit I’ve just started drooling again just thinking about the starters. Hubby’s foie gras was amazing, I didn’t try his parfait, but he thought it was rich and smooth, but it was the pan fried foie gras that blew both of us away, it was served rare in the middle, and when you ate a piece it literally exploded with it’s rich buttery taste, hubby said he would have been happy with just this and that the parfait just added to the fantastic starter, my tuna came rare with one quickly seared side I am a big fan of raw tuna from eating sashimi, but this light searing seemed to accentuate the flavour and the dressing just helped, we were in heaven with the starters and we didn’t think it could get much better.

One thing that had attracted us to French Living was that it stated on its menu that it would cook steaks, blue, rare or medium at most; we thought this boded well for the red meat that we ordered.

We ordered a fantastic rose to go with the main courses, we knew that theoretically we should go for red but neither of us fancied it, specially not hubby who is only just coming round to the wonders of red wine.

The main course both came with gratin dauphinois that were almost bitter with the garlic, it was such fantastic taste compared to the normal grease riddled potatoes passed of as grain dauphinois, and roasted vegetable cocktail a fantastic mix of seasonal vegetables, the courgettes were fantastic. So the mains were going well even before got to the meat, and I don’t know which one to mention first, but my duck wins, it came rare – the fat was perfectly cooked and the flesh was rare and melt in the mouth, it was a complete revelation I had never had such tender and tasty duck, the hubby was almost struck dumb, next to beef duck has got to be one of his favourites; it was also one of the most generous portions of duck I’ve ever seen, it was fantastic; and hubby’s steak was perfectly cooked rare and tender, he regretted not ordering it blue as the meat was such good quality. The mains were perfect as were the starters.

Although, fit to burst the desserts were calling to us, hubby went for his idea of heaven a two chocolate mousse that was incredibly light but a great contrast of dark and white chocolate; I went of the crème brulee which was the best I have ever eaten rich and thick and wonderfully creamy with a fantastic vanilla kick, the crispy sugar topping was wafer thin and the bitter toffee taste worked so well. We decided to have a glass of desert wine each with pudding, but the wine was so nice we went on to order a bottle to share.

The waiters were fantastic, the food was wonderful and I can’t wait to get back up to Nottingham to eat there again.

The bill is a bit hazy but I think it was around £100.

'red meat'

Shrewsbury - I think is my spiritual home.

Three days of real ale and good food was the plan, and Shrewsbury didn't disappoint.

We arrived in Shrewsbury about 11am on Saturday and walked over the bulging river Severn to 'Ye Olde Bucks Head Inn' http://www.bucksheadinn.co.uk/facilities.htm to our home for the next two days, the room was nice, clean with en-suite bathroom but unfortunately no shower.!

After dashing back across town, we were a bit out of breath and thirsty so felt that obvious solution was to start the pub tour right away in a small bar that looked like it was straight out of the seventies; it was the Coach and Horses which turned out to be a fantastic real ale pub with a locally sourced ever changing menu, that had us salivating straight away, but we had only just had breakfast so we had to restrain ourselves. After the fantastic pint of Hanby Cheery bomb - my favourite beer; it was off round the corner to the Admiral Benbow for an update of the golf from the friendly people at the bar, and a sensible half. We followed this with a visit to the Three Fishes on Fish Street, for some great oakham ales, and a wander round to the Yorkshire House for some local IPA and down to the Vaults, a local rock pub, with fantastic Wild Hare on draft and a great sounding home made menu.

Time flew past and it was soon time to go to the Golden Cross Hotel, the restaurant that we had booked for dinner. To sum the restaurant up it was fantastic. We arrived to find the restaurant was an electic mix of styles in a gorgeous medieval setting, there are two rooms to the restaurant and we were shown into the back room, this room was still stylish but not as luxurious looking as the room we had just walked through, so we were a bit disappointed. We were shown to our table, which was a little bit awkard for me and the hubby as we're rather on the larger side and the table legs were in a difficult position so we either had to straddle the leg or squeeze between them -this was to be the only disappointment of the evening. We ordered gin and tonic to start whilst we read the extensive wine list and sumptuous seasonal menu. We decided to order a red, as we knew we would be ordering red meat for our main course, it was a lovely pinotage. The hubby chose to start with chicken liver parfait with red onion marmelade served with toasted brioche, and I chose the grilled fresh sardines served on a nicoise salad on toasted bread; the chicken liver was smooth and tasty which worked perfectly with the sweet brioche and the onion marmelade and my sardines were two grilled sardines on a mixed salad leaves with fresh anchovies, it was delicious but incredibly filling. For our mains hubby went for duck breast with cauliflower mash and baked red cabbage with star anise and I chose the lavender crusted rump of spring lamb served with dauphenoise potatoes & ratatouille, and was very pleased when the waitress checked how I would like the lamb cooked, I chose pink.

I could rant on about the quality of the mains for the rest of the log, but you might get a bit bored, but just to sum up, the hubby claims the duck (which was served perfectly pink/red, through out) was the best he had ever tasted, and the red cabbage was perfect; my lamb came melt in the mouth pink and had just the right amount of lavender subtle but not over powering, and the dauphenoise potatoes were like a perfect millefeuille almost too pretty to eat.

After such fantastic meals we decided to treat ourselves to pudding as well, hubby had a smooth and creamy home made strawberry ice cream served with handmade shortbread (that was melt in the mouth) and local clotted cream, and I had a ginger and lemon cheesecake, that was perfect to cleanse the palate.

For the three courses each, a gin and tonic each and one bottle of wine the bill came to £70.00, which for the high quality seemed amazingly reasonable.

We are already planning our return and hoping to be able to get a room there as well as eating there again.